The Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate has asked Western Norway Research Institute and Norconsult to evaluate the arrangement of local energy reporting. The evaluation aims to assess different aspects of local energy reporting, and the objective is to map out different participant’s experiences of the arrangement. By doing this, alternative approaches to local energy reporting will be suggested.

The regulation of local energy reporting came into force 01.01.2003. The aim was to expand the knowledge of local energy supply, energy use and different energy alternatives. Local energy reports are prepared by the electricity concessionaries in the municipalities. The energy reports objective is to improve the dialogue between municipalities, concessionaries and other local energy-businesses. The Norwegian Water Resources asks for a evaluation which seeks to detect whether the energy reports have vitalized local energy politics. The evaluation has two different approaches – one quantitative and one qualitative. The quantitative study is a survey addressing 130 concessionaries, and the qualitative approach is a in-depth study of a selection of different municipalities.